Do We Worship the Same God?: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Dialogue

By Miroslav Volf

Often the differences between the three Abrahamic religions -- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam -- seem more obvious than their commonalities, leading to the question "Do we worship the same God?" Can the answer be "yes" without denying our differences?

This volume brings Jewish, Christian, and Muslim philosophers and theologians together to answer this question, offering rare insight into how representatives of each religion view the other monotheistic faiths. Each of their contributions uniquely approaches the primary question from a philosophical perspective that is informed by the practice of worship and prayer. Concepts covered include "sameness" and "oneness," the nature of God, epistemology, and the Trinity. Do We Worship the Same God? models serious-minded, honest, and respectful interreligious dialogue and gives us new ways to address an ongoing question.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Release date: Nov 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781467436571

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Contributors

Introduction

Ever since 9/11 the question whether Muslims and Christians worship the same God has persistently followed me wherever I go speaking about relations between these two religions. Muslims don’t push the question. Christians do, vigorously — in Europe, Asia, and Africa no less than in North America. Maybe that’s not surprising. The terrorists who flew the planes on that suicidal mission were instructed in their manual: Remember, this is a battle for the sake of God. In the name of God and with expectations of glory in this world and rewards in the next, they killed themselves and thousands of innocent civilians. To many Christians it seems obvious that the God who spills the blood of the innocent and rewards suicidal missions with paradisiacal pleasures can’t be the God they worship. What many Christians aren’t aware of is that that may be obvious to many Muslims as well.

But the question isn’t mainly about the terrorists and their God. It’s about Muslims generally. It draws its energy from a deep concern. To ask: Do we have a common God? is, among other things, to worry: Can we live together? That’s why whether or not a given community worships the same god as does another community has always been a crucial cultural and political question and not just a theological one.

Live together Muslims and Christians will!

Christianity and Islam are today the most numerous and fastest growing religions globally. Together they encompass more than half of humanity. Consequence: both are here to stay.

As a result of globalization, ours is an interconnected and interdependent world. Religions are intermingled within single states and across their boundaries. Consequence: Muslims and Christians will increasingly share common spaces.

Since both religions are by their very nature socially engaged — they are world-transforming religions of a prophetic type — and since their followers mostly embrace democratic ideals, they will continue to push for their vision of the good life in the public square. Consequence: tensions, even conflicts between Muslims and Christians, are unavoidable.

Growing, intertwined, and assertive — communities of Muslims and Christians will live together.

Muslims and Christians can work together to depose dictators and assert the power of the people; we’ve seen it happen in the Tahrir Square in Cairo during the 2011 revolution in Egypt, with devout Muslims and Coptic Christians protesting side by side. But can Muslims and Christians also work together to build a flourishing democratic society in which rights of all would be respected, the rights of minority Coptic Christians no less than the rights of majority Muslims? They can, if they have a common set of fundamental values. But do they? Only if Muslims and Christians, both monotheists committed to seeing in the attributes of God their fundamental values, have a common God. But do they?

At the height of the Iraq War in 2004, influential TV evangelist and former U.S. presidential candidate Pat Robertson said: The entire world is being convulsed by a religious struggle. The fight is not about money or territory; it is not about poverty versus wealth; it is not about ancient customs versus modernity. No. The struggle is whether Hubal, the Moon God of Mecca, known as Allah, is supreme, or whether the Judeo-Christian Jehovah God of the Bible is supreme. That was a war cry! God vs. Allah.

The dispute is not about the divine name, God or Allah, as some ignorantly claim. Arab Christians have for centuries worshiped God under the name Allah; the Copts in Egypt, a persecuted minority, use Allah to refer to the God of Jesus Christ who is the Holy Trinity. The dispute is about the divine identity: Do Muslims and Christians pray to two different deities so that, given that both are strict monotheists, one group prays to a false god and are therefore idolaters whereas the other prays to a true God?

Many Christians through the centuries, saints and undisputed great teachers, have believed that Muslims worship the same God as they do — the same God, though differently understood, of course. They did so even in times of Muslim cultural ascendency, military conquests, and grave threat to Christianity in the whole of Europe. After the fall of Constantinople (1453), the city named after the first Christian emperor and a seat of Christendom for over 1,000 years, Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, a towering intellect and an experienced church diplomat, affirmed unambiguously that Muslims and Christians worship the same God, albeit in part differently understood.

But was the learned cardinal from centuries past right? Or might the popular TV evangelist have been closer to the truth, notwithstanding the exaggerated character of the contrast he drew? The issue continues to be hotly debated. Under the auspices of the God and Human Flourishing Program housed in the Yale Center for Faith and Culture (www.yale.edu/faith), my two colleagues (David Kelsey and John Hare) and I have organized two consultations about the question. Selected papers from these two consultations are printed in this book.

To the first consultation we invited only Christian theologians. Since little had been written on the topic at that time, we as Christians had to sort things for ourselves — get clarity not just about what the position might be but even more fundamentally about how we might go about determining our position. The essays by Amy Plantinga Pauw (Louisville Presbyterian Seminary), Christoph Schöbel (University of Tübingen, and Denys Turner (Yale University) were presented at that consultation.

To the second consultation we invited Jewish and Muslim scholars as well. Jews, Muslims, and Christians have traditionally each had their own views on whether the other two communities worship the same God as they do. For instance, Christians have always believed that they worshiped the same God as the Jews even though Christians think of Jesus Christ as God incarnate and hold that the One God is the Holy Trinity, whereas the Jews contest these claims. For Christians believe that they worship the God of Abraham and Sarah, the God of Moses and Isaiah, the God of the Jews. For the most part, Jews do not think that they worship the same God as Christians do; on account of Christian worship of Jesus Christ, they deem Christians to be idolaters and therefore not true monotheists. Each community also has its own modes of reflection about the issue. Still, notwithstanding the fact that each Abrahamic faith community — Jews, Christians, and Muslims — has its own specific perspective on the issue, theologians from each community should take into account arguments of the other two. Hence, though the focus of the second consultation was on the Christian perspectives on whether Muslims and Christians have a common God, we needed to listen to perspectives of Jewish and Muslim religious thinkers and to let them look over our shoulders as we tried to craft our own position. The texts by Alon Goshen-Gottstein (Elijah Institute, Israel), Reza Shah-Kazemi (Institute of Ismaili Studies, London), and Peter Ochs (University of Virginia) fulfill that function.

Some of the intellectually most stimulating discussions that I have ever engaged in happened in the course of these two consultations. The discussions touched on matters of ultimate concern (and highest complexity), they concerned relations among the three monotheistic faiths, and they were carried against the backdrop of mutual enmity and violence, of conflicts with a centuries-long history that continue still today. The papers and discussions stimulated my own work on the topic, which was published as Allah: A Christian Response (HarperOne, 2011). I hope that the essays, now collected in this book, will stimulate broad and deep reflections and discussions on this issue of singular religious, cultural, and political importance.

T. J. Dumansky took the lion’s share of the responsibility of organizing the consultations and, together with Jan O’Dell, my assistant at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, helped host them at the Yale Divinity School. Christopher Corbin helped with editing the texts for publication. Jon Pott and his staff at Eerdmans made them into a book. To them all I am very grateful. My deepest thanks goes to Alonzo McDonald and his Agape Foundation, which financed the consultations as well as the editing. But the most extraordinary thing about Alonzo McDonald was that he, an octogenarian with no training in theology or religious studies, was an active and constructive participant in these discussions.

MIROSLAV VOLF

The Same God? The Perspective of Faith, the Identity of God, Tolerance, and Dialogue

Christoph Schwöbel

Who’s to Decide?

The question whether Judaism, Christianity, and Islam worship and believe in the same God is an intensely debated issue of theological reflection in each of the three traditions and one of the central topics of conversations between the three monotheistic religions often grouped together as the Abrahamic faiths. The declaration of the Second Vatican Council, Nostra Aetate, is often referred to as indicating that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. On closer inspection, however, a different and more complicated picture emerges. Nostra Aetate emphasizes that all peoples are one community (una communitas), have one origin, since God let the whole of humankind live on earth (unam habent originem cum Deus omne genus hominum inhabitare fecerit super universam faciem terrae), and have one ultimate goal (unum etiam habent finem ultimum, Deum . . .). It also underlines that the various religions expect an answer to the riddles of the human condition, which culminate in the question of the ultimate and ineffable mystery of our existence, from which we have our beginning and toward which we strive (quid demum illud ultimum et ineffabile mysterium quod nostram existentiam amplectitur, ex quo ortum sumimus et quo tendimus). This, however, is not primarily an anthropological constant, an essential feature of the human condition; rather it is rooted in the fact that God’s providence and the testimony of his goodness as well as God’s counsel of salvation extend to all peoples. There is a carefully balanced tension in these statements between emphasizing God as the one universal origin and goal of the whole of humankind, and at the same time stressing that the elect will be united in the Holy City, which will be illumined by the glory of God. The universality of the common origin and common goal is balanced by the emphasis on God’s election, which, again, is balanced by stressing that all peoples will walk in the light of God’s glory.

It is this theological framework that in Nostra Aetate provides the background for the anthropological statement that humans expect from the religions — a response to the recondite enigmas of the human condition, even an answer to the ultimate mystery of the origin and goal of our existence. How is that to be understood epistemologically? Do the religions know that the origin and goal of all peoples are one and the same God? Nostra Aetate offers a complex and highly differentiated answer to the question: the same God? First of all, it is stated that from the earliest times until today there is in all the diverse peoples some sort of perception (quaedam perceptio) of the hidden power that is present to the course of events in the world and to the events of human life. Sometimes there is even a certain recognition or acknowledgment (aliquando agnitio) of a highest Godhead, or even of a Father (Summi Numinis vel etiam Patris). This perceptio or even agnitio penetrates the life of the diverse peoples with an intimate religious sense (intimo sensu religioso). This is the reason why the religions strive to respond in subtle concepts and by means of a highly developed language to respond to the same questions (ad easdem quaestiones respondere satagunt). As far as I can see, this is the only explicit identity claim that is made in Nostra Aetate. Do we have to conclude that Nostra Aetate avoids claiming that the religions worship the same God while explicitly stating that they attempt to provide an answer to the same question concerning human existence, a question that is rooted in their perception and even recognition of a divine power?

Nostra Aetate presents the religions in a perspective of concentric circles, a method also used in other documents of Vatican II, starting from the outer circles and proceeding to the inner circles. In Hinduism people scrutinize the divine mystery (homines mysterium divinum scrutantur) and express it in the form of mythologies, philosophical reflections, ascetic lifestyles, and meditation. Seeking refuge in God with love and confidence is also seen as one of the expressions of this scrutiny of the divine mystery. In Buddhism, recognition of the radical insufficiency of the mutable world leads to teaching a way that people can attain perfect liberation or the highest illumination. It should be noted that Nostra Aetate does not claim that this is what Buddhists and Hindus seek, do, or strive for, but that it is what people in Hinduism and Buddhism attempt to attain. It is, it seems, not a statement of what Hindus and Buddhists of the various sects would describe as their self-understanding; rather, it is a description from the perspective of Catholic Christian faith, based on the notion that all humans expect from the religions answers to the riddles of the human condition and the mystery of our existence. With regard to other religions mentioned generally in the same circle, it is simply said that they strive to meet the restlessness of the human heart (Augustine’s famous metaphor) in various ways: by teaching, precepts for living, and holy rites.

The summary statement is again finely balanced: the Catholic Church does not reject anything in these religions that is true and holy (nihil eorum, quae in his religionibus vera et sancta sunt). It considers with sincere attention (sincera observantia) the modes of action and living and the precepts and doctrines that these religions represent. The reason for this attitude is that they often (haud raro) emit a ray of that truth which illumines all humans, although the teachings of these religions show in many ways discrepancies from what the Catholic Church itself holds and proposes. If we try to unpack this statement we have to say that the Catholic Church does not reject anything that is true and holy in the religions because it recognizes that what is true and holy in them refers to the Truth, which illumines all people. We find here a referential criterion for assessing what is true and holy in other religions. Although there are many discrepancies in the doctrines, precepts, et cetera of the religions from what the Catholic Church itself teaches, it recognizes nevertheless a ray of the truth that illumines all humans. The basis for this view is the common origin and goal of all humankind in God, which lets all people strive for an answer to the mystery of human existence, the perception and even recognition of this hidden divine power in the religions, and the eschatological expectation that in the end, when the elect will be united in the Holy City — which is illumined by the Glory of God — all people will walk in the light of this glory.

However, in addition to a basis for such a referential view we need a criterion to assess what refers to the truth and in what way it refers to it. The criterion offered in Nostra Aetate is Christological: The Catholic Church proclaims Christ who is the way, the truth, and the life, in whom people find the fullness of religious life and in whom God has reconciled the world with himself. This seems to suggest that the fullness of truth can be found in Christ as well as the way by means of which we can attain it. While the referential basis makes sure that all religions can refer to the one divine truth, the referential criterion allows the Catholic Church to ascertain to what extent they refer to the one truth. This is the basis for the exhortation to all Catholics for conversation and cooperation with the religions as well as for recognizing, preserving, and promoting the spiritual and moral goods and the sociocultural values they find in them by witnessing to Christ in faith and in life.

This is prima facie a somewhat bewildering statement. However, if Christ is the criterion of truth and therefore the content of Christian witness, Christ is also the criterion for recognizing, preserving, and promoting spiritual and moral good, as well as sociocultural values Catholics find in other religions.

When we now turn to what Nostra Aetate says about Muslims we find a number of remarkable changes in comparison to the treatment of Hinduism and Buddhism. Nostra Aetate does not state what people do in Islam as it states what people do in Hinduism or Buddhism, but says that Muslims adore the only God, the living and subsisting, the merciful and omnipotent creator of heaven and earth who has spoken to humans (unicum Deum adorant, viventem et subsistentem, misericordem et omnipotentem, Creatorem caeli et terrae, homines allocutum). This statement is supported by a reference to Gregory VII’s letter to Al-Nasir, King of Mauritania, which also asserts that Muslims and Christians believe and confess one God, albeit in different ways. The interesting feature here is that the text emphasizes the points of referential convergence between the Christian understanding of God and the Muslim understanding of God, but does so in a way that gives precedence to what Muslims would stress in their understanding of God, the singularity and unity of God, that God is living and self-subsistent, merciful, and omnipotent, that God is creator of heaven and earth and has spoken to humans. What we see here is reference by definite description, offering descriptions on which Christians and Muslims agree. These descriptions specify Muslim worship. This seems particularly apt because acts of worship are shaped by the object of worship and have the same referential logic, which seems to be applied throughout Nostra Aetate. With regard to the first statement of the treatment of Islam in section 3, we can say that referential convergence establishes propositional consensus.

In what follows, this referential logic is applied to central aspects of Islamic faith. In this way Nostra Aetate states that Muslims try hard to submit with all their soul to the hidden counsels of God, just as Abraham submitted himself to God, Abraham to whom Muslim faith likes to refer. By referring to submission to God — to Islam in other words — Nostra Aetate can take up Muslim self-understanding by seeing it exemplified in Abraham to whom both Christians and Muslims (and of course first and foremost, Jews) refer. This reference to Abraham, however, leaves it open that Christians and Muslims refer to Abraham in different ways, although both see him as exemplary for the human relationship to God.

When Nostra Aetate mentions Jesus and Mary, the document explicitly states the differences between Muslim and Catholic views with regard to Jesus and implicitly with regard to Mary. Concerning Jesus it says that he is venerated as a prophet by Muslims but not acknowledged as God (quidem ut Deum non agnoscunt), and that also marks a decisive difference in the view of Mary, although Muslims can invoke Mary in prayer, which Protestants, for instance, would hesitate to do. The expectation of the Last Judgment and of resurrection of the dead is also mentioned — so it seems — as a point of agreement. The last element of the description of Islamic religion mentions prayer, almsgiving, and fasting.

It is quite clear that this is a description of Islam from a Christian perspective, which interprets Islam as a form of believing in the one God on the basis of the criteria of Christian faith, what we have called the referential basis and the referential criterion. By focusing on the points of convergence in understanding God as the object of reference of Christian and Muslim faith, it is therefore suggested that Muslims and Christians worship the one and only God, however differently. This difference in Muslim worship and belief is, from a Christian perspective, a deficiency. However, if one concentrates on that which would suggest a referential identity in Muslim and Christian faith in God, as it is expressed from a Christian perspective, this also implies — from a Muslim point of view — that the description of Islam is deficient. It mentions neither Muhammad nor the Hadj. Referential convergence or identity, i.e., convergence or identity with regard to the referent, does not exclude deficient description — for either of the two perspectives. However, it is clear that the Council does not expect the religions to meet on the basis of their respective deficiencies as they are perceived from either side, but on the basis of those shared elements that lead to the perception of deficiencies.

If we look at the conclusion of the paragraph on Islam it is clear that what has been stated is in the view of the Council sufficient to offer an exhortation to all (omnes), in view of the dissent and inimical relations between Muslims and Christians in history, to leave the past aside, to work for mutual understanding (ad comprehensionem mutuam) and protect and promote together (communiter) social justice and moral goods, not least, peace and freedom for the whole of humankind. The wording seems to suggest that what has been mentioned as a convergence in Christian and Muslim faith is sufficient to call for mutual understanding and communal engagement for justice, moral goods, peace, and freedom. This is presented as a step into the future, leaving aside the struggles of the past. One could say that Nostra Aetate does not so much seek to establish a common dogmatic ground between Catholic Christian faith and Muslim faith but common ethical aims. However, there is sufficient common ground, the alleged commonality of referring to the one and only God, to address both sides (omnes) with the exhortation to exercise mutual comprehension